Discard Trope: Enormous Engagement Ring

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Created By: giggles on July 20, 2012 Last Edited By: giggles on February 28, 2017

Troped

Enormous Engagement Ring

The stone in a woman's engagement ring is larger than average, and acknowledged in-universe

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Page Type:Trope

A woman receives an engagement ring, and it's huge, so much so that she has a major reaction to it. It shows that her fiance either makes some major money or otherwise is a major criminal. She may love it (possibly showing it off to everyone); a more down-to-earth character may think it's just too much to accept. Even if the character can't accept something so extravagant, she may take one last look at how beautiful it is before giving it back.

Examples:

Parodied by the Canadian commercial for Harvey's, a burger chain. A man calls over three friends and shows them what some girl had just given him. The friends then proceed to gush over the size of it, and how it symbolizes her feelings, just like women stereotypically do.

Audrey Hepburn's character in How to Steal a Million yells at the sight of the gigantic diamond ring Mr. Leland gives her when he proposes.

In The Palm Beach Story, Claudette Colbert's character is proposed to by one of the richest men in the world. It's so large, she tells him to put it away, or else the sight of it will convince her to go through with it (she is married already, anyway). She takes a final look at it before putting it away forever.

In Gone with the Wind, Scarlet asks for an large ring and Rhett gives her one with a diamond that even she describes as "obscenely huge."

One of Holly's friends gets engaged and her ring is very big and very beautiful. She pretends the ring is so heavy that she has to drag her hand. However, she and her fiancé argue and by the end of the movie, they're broken up.

Holly, the protagonist, receives a huge engagement ring from her ex-boyfriend and Romantic False Lead. He is a rather important figure in journalism. She acknowledges that the ring is gorgeous and considers accepting his offer, but he's ultimately refused.

In Titanic, Rose tells Jack that Cal is worse than her boyfriend and shows him the engagement ring from him. He tells her that if she had jumped off the boat, she would have gone straight to the bottom.

In Alice, Flo was once romanced by an oil sheik who gave her an engagement ring. The stone was so large the other waitresses thought it had to be fake. But then they did the "cut glass" test where Mel took the ring and scratched on the glass door to the diner. He tapped where he had just scratched with his knuckle in triumph. Then the circle he had just scratched fell out of the door.

Double Subverted in Hangin' with Mr. Cooper. One of the two girls accepts a proposal from a (supposedly) rich suitor. The other woman comments on its size ("I can see where the Titanic hit it!"), but Mr. Cooper calls it a cubic zirconium. She refuses to believe that it's a fake until the stone in the ring breaks in some accident. It ends with the suitor having a real diamond as well, but he was going to switch it due to resizing or resetting issues.

In Not Going Out, Lucy is taken aback by the massive and expensive diamonds her slightly dodgy nightclub-owning boyfriend has given her as a sort of engagement gift. Her cynical and jealous flatmate Lee suggests this is all a scam to get otherwise chargeable jewellry through Customs for free as Lucy and her man are off on a dream holiday.

Coronation Street: The hyper-jealous Eileen has seen her fireman boyfriend out with an attractive firewoman from his station. Suspecting he is cheating, Eileen and her dozy friend Julie embarrass themselves - and him - by breaking into the station. Angry and disgruntled, the boyfriend produces a large ornate engagement ring and says this is the reason he was out with his colleague. Her family own a jewellers' store and she was helping him choose a ring. She's the right person to find the best and most beautiful ring, and she also gets a discount on it for him, so it is larger and better than what he might have been able to afford in normal circumstances. Eileen is sick twice over on seeing the ring. One, because it is big and ornate, and visibly so; two, because her insane and irrational jealousy has made him contemplate breaking the whole thing off and taking it back to the shop for a refund.

In Dragon Quest VIII, the party accompanies the prince of Argonia on a rite to slay an Argonian lizard and bring back its crystal "heart" to be made into an engagement ring - but the prince is disappointed to discover how small they are and insists the party get a big one (from a big Argonian lizard, of course) before returning home. Naturally, it is by far the largest such crystal anyone's seen.

In The Curse of Monkey Island such a ring is part of the central story, which revolves around the main protagonist Guybrush Threepwood's attempt to restore his fiancée after accidentally turning her into a gold statue by giving her a cursed diamond ring.

From the Futurama movie The Beast with a Billion Backs, Yivo proposes to the universe with one of these ultra-large rings.

"Blue Cat Blues" from Tom and Jerry: Tom and a rival tom-cat are trying to impress their love, a lovely white cat lady. The ring from Tom's rival was so big and bright that you had to put on welder's glasses to look at it.

In The Simpsons episode "Revenge is a Dish Best Served Three Times" story "Bartman Begins" Bart has a story parodying Batman Begins. Homer & Marge go down an alley on the way home from the Opera House. Marge comments that it's a bad part of town, so she'll turn her ring so that the large diamond is hidden, but that only reveals an even larger diamond on the opposite side of her ring.

It's been a long time, so I may be misremembering: Alice, the TV show set in a diner, once had Flo romanced by an oil sheik who gave her an engagement ring. The stone was so large the other waitresses thought it had to be fake. But then they did the "cut glass" test....

In The Simpsons episode "Revenge is a Dish Best Served Three Times" story "Bartman Begins" Bart has a story parodying Batman Begins. Homer & Marge go down an alley on the way home from the Opera House. Marge comments that it's a bad part of town, so she'll turn her ring so that the large diamond is hidden, but that only reveals an even larger diamond on the opposite side of her ring.

In Dragon Quest VIII, the party accompanies the prince of Argonia on a rite to slay an Argonian lizard and bring back its crystal "heart" to be made into an engagement ring - but the prince is disappointed to discover how small they are and insists the party get a big one (from a big Argonian lizard, of course) before returning home. Naturally, it is by far the largest such crystal anyone's seen.

^ I've put up a picture from the site for now, but I'd like to change it to a screen grab or still from some work, since the focus of the trope is on in-universe examples. A cartoon example might work well, say the Tom and Jerry example??

I like the trope. Does it have to be an engagement ring, though? I remember watching the Tom and Jerry cartoon, and I think it was only a gift when Tom and another tomcat were rivals for the lady cat's attentions, but it has been a long time since I saw it.

There is a beautiful and really huge ceremonial ring for a Jewish wedding in an episode of The X-Files. The function in the story is obviously different from the one described - just a beautiful ring to celebrate a wedding and no need to impress the girl with your wealth and social standing.

Parodied by the Canadian commercial for Harvey's, a burger chain. A man calls over three friends and shows them what some girl had just given him. The friends then proceed to gush over the size of it, and how it symbolizes her feelings, just like women stereotypically do.

In Hangin With Mr Cooper, one of the two girls (I forget the character's name; the one played by Holly Robinson Pete) accepts a proposal from a (supposedly) rich suitor. The other woman comments on its size ("I can see where the Titanic hit it!"), but Mr. Cooper calls it a cubic zirconium. Holly's character refuses to believe that it's a fake until the stone in the ring breaks in some accident. It ends with the suitor apparently having a real diamond, but was going to switch it in later due to resizing/resetting issues. I saw the episode so long ago, I forget a lot of the finer details, but I think it kernel of this trope is here.

In The Curse Of Monkey Island such a ring is part of the central story, which revolves around the main protagonist Guybrush Threepwood's attempt to restore his fiancee after accidentally turning her into a gold statue by giving her a cursed diamond ring.

@Oof: please list them if you can find them. It feels like a different trope to me -- one is about a guy pampering his wife with expensive stuff, and the other is about a guy trying to convince a girl to become his wife by giving her expensive stuff.

Megaptera, you're right. The engagement ring informs the audience about the man (the bigger the ring, the more "alpha" the man), while the gift ring informs the audience about the woman (the bigger the ring, the more smart/wise/discerning the woman is for having picked that man all those years ago).

If I gather enough examples I'll start the after-marriage ring as a separate trope.

^ & ^^ I had a similar idea. Man giving woman expensive jewellery is probably a super trope, or perhaps a sister trope. For example huge and extravagant necklaces, right?

It's just that an engagement ring has a very clear story-telling purpose.

I think the sponsor, troper giggles, lost her interest. (I hope giggles is a woman, it's hard to tell just from the nickname). I've checked her edit history which is not very extensive and her last edit is from January. In addition, she hasn't been contributing to the discussion, and it has been in YKTTW for far to long ad it's getting close to Just Launch It Already. Still I'm not sure whether this is considered to be Up For Grabs.

Also, could anyone write and add examples from The Curse Of Monkey Island and Spiderman comics? The pictures make it clear they are examples :-) I really like the Monkey Island ring. And the Spiderman one is really good too, maybe even better because the text says engagement and it has the oh my reaction.

The pictures are very good and illustrative. We might use them in a sub-page with Image Links Wiki once the trope is launched.

^ "Drafts are automatically considered Up For Grabs after at least two months of inactivity by the OP (original poster)." Does this mean inactivity in YKTTW, or inactivity in general? I say we wait until March to grab it. It's just another week, anyway.

So, to clarify, the categorisation of the tropes would go something like this:

The name is OK and the trope has collected quite a few examples. It could go on the index Rule Of Romantic. We have some sister tropes. What is the problem? Should we somehow re-write the description? I like it well enough.

In Not Going Out, Lucy is taken aback by the massive and expensive diamonds her slightly dodgy nightclub-owning boyfriend has given her as a sort of engagement gift. Her cynical and jealous flatmate Lee suggests this is all a scam to get otherwise chargeable jewellry through Customs for free - Lucy and man are off on a dream holiday.

Meanwhile in Coronation Street, the hyperjealous Eileen has seen her fireman boyfriend out with an attractive firewoman from the same station. suspecting he is cheating, Eileen and her dozy friend Julie embarrass themselves - and him - by breaking into the station. Angry and disgruntled, the boyfriend produces a large ornate engagement ring and says this is the reason he was out with his colleague - her family own a jewellers' store and she was helping him choose a ring...

In the Coronation Street example, the sting in the plot is that the boyfriend has been keeping a secret from Eileen - the ring. His attractive workmate is from a family who run a jeweller's business, so she not only helps him choose the best possible ring, she gets a discount on it - so it is larger and better than what he might have been able to afford in normal circumstances. Eileen is sick twice over on seeing the ring. One, because it is big and ornate, and visibly so; two, because her insane and irrational jeralousy has made him contemplate breaking the whole thing off and taking it back to the shop for a refund. hoping this helps!

If we talk about engagement rings here I got perfect example https://www.elmajewellery.co.uk/his-hers-ring-sets-c-32.html. I picked up the bridal ring sets few days back as my fiance already asked me to buy the beautiful one. When he presented the same ring on our special day I was on top of the world. I know his never ending love for me.

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